Afford Anything - Building Your Dream Business, with Amy Porterfield

Episode Date: May 31, 2023

#443: As a former corporate powerhouse turned successful entrepreneur, Amy knows firsthand the challenges and triumphs of building a business from scratch. Amy is the host of the top-ranked podcast "Online Marketing Made Easy," and the owner of a multi-million dollar digital course business. She is also the author of “Two Week’s Notice,” a guide to quitting your job and building your own business. Get ready to be inspired as we uncover Amy's secrets to building a thriving business and learn how you can apply her proven techniques to achieve your own entrepreneurial dreams. Whether you're just starting out or looking to take your business to the next level, this episode is packed with actionable advice that you won't want to miss. For more information, visit the show notes at https://affordanything.com/episode443 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Have you or your spouse or your sibling or your friends, have any of you ever said, hey, I'd love to go into business for myself, but I don't really know exactly what my business is going to be. I don't have a bunch of money to get started and I'm not that good at sales and kind of uncomfortable selling. And frankly, I'm not even really sure what I'm that good at. Have you ever had that conversation or had those thoughts? If so, you'll enjoy today's episode. Welcome to the Afford Anything Podcast, the show that understands that you can. afford anything, but not everything. Every choice that you make carries a trade-off.

And that's true, not just of your money, but of your time, your energy. And the work that you do, being engaged in some kind of work, means that there's other work you're not doing. And maybe the work that you're doing right now is not your calling. It's not your career. Maybe it's not something you even necessarily enjoy that much. Or worse, maybe you don't even like it that much. And you're not even getting paid.

that well. That's like the worst of both worlds. So if you or someone that you're close to has had the thought that maybe one day you might want to go into business for yourself, be your own boss, but you don't even have an idea of what you would do. What would you sell? What would your business be? If that's where you're at, then stay tuned. Because we are talking to Amy Porterfield, a 9 to 5 escapee. She used to work for Tony Robbins. And Tony is great. If you haven't read his book, check it out. He's amazing. But working for someone, even someone as cool as Tony Robbins, is not the same thing as running your own business, being your own boss. And so Amy left to do that. And she now runs a multi-million dollar online business with 20 full-time employees. If you are

looking for the courage to quit your job, boost your income, and work on your own terms, then let's find out how. What's the step-by-step process for getting started? To shed light on that, here's Amy. Hi, Amy. Hi. It's so good to talk to you. You too.

I'm so happy to be here. I'm thrilled to have you on. Amy, you talk about giving two weeks notice. That's the title of your book. For many people, the dream is. to give two weeks notice in their jobs. How common is this dream? Those of us who are listening, are we the weird ones? Or is this really pervasive? You know, when I was promoting my book, Two Weeks Notice, I promoted it for about five months and had hundreds and hundreds of conversations

about this concept of finding the courage to quit your job and starting your own business. And I can tell you, it is a very popular topic from news channels that I was interviewed on to different communities I'm a part of, to my own podcast and other podcasts. It's a conversation that many people are having. And the reason why I think it is such a popular conversation, although it's very hard to take action on, is because people are looking around thinking, this can't be it. This cannot be my end all be all. And when you look online and you see all the opportunities that are out there, you can't help but think, if I'm not happy here in my nine to five job, what might be possible for me? So what I think is also equally,

popular right now is not to say, I don't like my job. I'm going to go get another 9 to 5 job, but I don't like my job. I deserve to be paid better. I don't like my working situation. And I'm going to do it my way. Has it increased? Like, why now? Why is there such interest in starting a business now as opposed to in 1990? I think there's two reasons. Number one, the pandemic has definitely shifted how we work and how we perceive our work life to be. And so, what happened was everyone was sent home. And then when we started to come out of this pandemic, people were sent back to the office and realized, I don't want to be in a 9 to 5 job where I'm coming into an office every day. I want that freedom and flexibility. Even if I still worked for somebody else, I want a little bit more freedom.

And then those people that are forced back into the workplace thought, no, I'm not going to do it. I'm going to do something different because I've had a taste of that freedom. So that's one thing. But also, the internet is wildly different now than, let's say, in the 90s and what you can do and what is possible. I mean, we can't even get into AI today, but I've been studying it more and more. And what it makes possible for business owners is incredible. So it's just a different world today with more opportunity and possibility. What are some of the limiting beliefs or challenges that people face when they're thinking about starting a business? I think one that's very normal for most of us is, what if this doesn't work?

What if I go out on my own, try to build a business online, maybe a coaching business, consulting business, maybe you want to create a digital course based on your expertise? What if I do that and it doesn't work? And there's a big chance that the first time you go out, it doesn't work. The first time I launched a digital course, I made a whopping $267 and I cried for a week because I thought it meant I wasn't cut out to be an entrepreneur. I'm going to have to go back to my nine to five job. And so it's very real that things don't work out in the beginning.

This limiting belief is so unfair to so many people just starting out because it's normal for it to be a little bit messy, a little bit uncertain in the beginning. I can't guarantee that everything's going to work out for you, but I can guarantee you can pick yourself back up and put yourself back out there once you know the strategies of how to build a business online. And so that's one of the limiting beliefs. it's also something that's so normal for it to be a little bit rocky in the beginning. One other thing that comes up a lot is that regular paycheck, the health insurance, like,

oh my gosh, I'm losing this security. You have to let go of some security, especially in the beginning, and take that leap of faith in order for something like this to work. And so what I suggest to make this more tactical is start a side hustle. When you're still in your 9 to 5 job, start a side hustle. Something on the side you can do in the mornings, the evenings, the weekends to bring in a little extra cash. But more importantly, to start getting the confidence to putting yourself out there in a different way. This is exactly what I did.

I started a side hustle. I was doing social media for small businesses on the side until it started to make a little money that I could start building it up more and more. And I did that for a good six months before I ever left my nine to five job. Now, I notice in two weeks notice you don't write about side hustles. Can you tell us a bit more about that? If I ever wrote that book over, I would absolutely be including a chapter about side hustles. I didn't want to in the beginning because I wanted people to just think, okay, this is how I'm going to build a business online. Because ultimately, I want to help people leave that 9 to 5 job and go for a full-time business of their own and be their own boss.

So when I wrote the book, I wasn't even thinking side hustle. However, for the five months that I started to promote it, the questions and the fear started coming up and I knew the side hustle was an antidote to some of those fears. And I realized, oh, this would have been a great thing to put in the book. However, what I know for sure in the way I wrote it, every strategy I share can be used as a side hustle or a full-time thing. I just don't use the word side hustle in the book. But yeah, it's something that I really do encourage my students to do while they're still

in a 9 to 5 job. Oftentimes, when people think about starting side hustles, there's the psychological element and then there's the logistical element, right? Logistically, your test driving an idea to see if it will work. Are there clients or customers who are willing to pay for the thing that you are interested in producing? That's the logistics of it. And then, of course, there's the psychological element of it gives you that opportunity

to ride a bike with training wheels, right? to do this while you still have some security. When somebody is starting a side hustle, why are they doing it beyond just the income that it produces? I really do believe they're doing it to prove to themselves that they could create something on their own. And so beyond just the money that a side hustle will give you, it's going to give you answers and clarity because I believe that action creates clarity until you get your feet wet, you get your hands into it, until you start doing it, there's so many things that will not really be clear to you at all. There are going to be ideas, insights, but nothing really concrete. So when people start getting into that side hustle, start working on it, so much possibility becomes known

because you realize, oh, I could do it this way, or that didn't work. What if I try this? Or I'm going to read that book to help me with this. And your knowledge starts to grow, your insight starts to grow, and your clarity. So for me, side hustles are so much more than the money. They're that experience. They allow you to turn your courage into confidence. For someone who's listening to this, let's start at the beginning. Let's say someone's listening and they're thinking at this moment, wow, I love the concept

of being able to quit my job, start a side hustle, test drive an idea and eventually quit my job and go into business for myself. But I don't even have an idea. What should that person do? How do you start generating ideas? Yes, I teach people how to create a digital course based on their knowledge and know how. And I created a model around that for anybody looking just to come up with an idea for a business, for a course, for a membership, whatever it might be. And I call it the sweet spot. There are four quadrants of the sweet spot. And this is the first thing I want all my students to do when they're saying, you know, I'm not really sure what I'd

create in a business, in a course, in a membership, whatever it might be. And the first question I want them to ask is, where is your expertise? Where have you gotten results for yourself or for your clients or for your students or in the business that you're working in right now? What does your knowledge and expertise look like? Now, you only need a 10% edge. You don't need to have more certification, more training, more education. You're going to look at what you do have right now and how can you turn that to a solution to help other people. So that's the first quadrant. The second quadrant out of four is who do you want to serve? And more importantly, what solution are you going to solve for them? So what are they challenged with? What do they need right now? What are their desires?

Because your expertise needs to be a solution to a challenge that your ideal customers are having. So what does that challenge look like and how are you going to solve it? The third quadrant is where are people spending money right now? So if you're you, think that you want to create, let's say, a business around coaching parents to help their picky eaters eat dinner at night? Let's say that's what you wanted to do. Well, do moms and dads spend money on books about it, coaching about it? Are there podcasts about it? Is there content out in the world that people would pay for to get help in this one area? And if the answer is yes, that is a good thing. You don't always want to be first to market. That's a whole different world

and a lot of time and energy and money to get known. But if it's already being done, that's actually a really great sign that you can get it up and running quickly. And then the fourth quadrant is, what brings you joy? I don't want you to creating a business based off your expertise if it's the last thing that you want to talk about or teach about. If you're burned out on your expertise, you're not going to want to create a whole business around it. So you have to find joy in what you do as well. So the four quadrants, expertise, a solution to a challenge. What are people spending money on and what brings you joy?

Yes. To dig into that a little bit, let's talk about finding a solution to a challenge. How do you verify what challenges people have, right? You might have your own ideas about, I think that other people are struggling with X or Y or Z. I think that other people are struggling with how to get their picky eater kids to eat more vegetables at dinner. How do you validate that?

Yes. Okay. So you're going to find a few people that you feel could be an ideal customer for the business or client for the business that you want to create. They might be friends. You might just post on social media. Hey, I'm looking for five people to jump on a quick 20 minute call with me to answer some questions around your challenge with XYZ. And I can give you some insight around that challenge as well, but I'd love to ask you some questions. And people are so helpful they want to help you.

And what you're going to do is you're going to get on a call and you're going to ask you. them the questions that you need to know to make sure that what you're creating is something that they would find valuable and pay money for. There's nothing better than getting in proximity and having real conversations with your potential ideal customer. So it could be on Zoom, it could be a coffee date, but I want you in conversation. And that's going to help immensely. Sometimes there are people who say that they will spend money on something, but when push

comes to shove, they actually won't. Yes. How do you distinguish between the two? So what I do with my students is I'll tell them, let's not say, I'm going to create a coaching program and I'm going to charge $1,000 a month for X, Y, Z calls. Would you pay for that? Because you're going to get a yes. They're on a call with you.

They're looking at you. They know you're trying to create something new. They want to support you. They're going to say yes. Yeah, it's just polite. Right? They're just polite. So instead of asking people like, would you pay money for this?

Ask them, what have you paid money for? Look for the proof. Have you purchased the books? Have you ever done therapy around this or coaching or where have you invested? And then also getting really clear on if they haven't spent money, what are the consequences? What has it cost them and just have them talk about it to see if they really understand? Right. Because oftentimes the problems that people face are expensive problems, either in the form of

out-of-pocket money or opportunity cost. Exactly. So true. That leads to a different quadrant where you talk about what people are spending money on right now. When a person is thinking about, you know, it's the average person who's listening to this, who's thinking about some business idea that they might have been floating. Is it, I'm going to use better in air quotes here, does a person have a greater likelihood of success by aiming for high volume low dollar amount or low volume high dollar amount?

Is there some type of target that a first time new business owner should be shooting for? You know, it would make sense if you think, okay, a first time business owner, let's go for low cost, high volume, because I think there's an understanding or a perception that it's easier to sell something that's cheaper. And not necessarily, because let's say someone's listening right now and they are a marriage therapist. They have years of schooling, years of experience, and they want to create a digital course to help other people fix their marriages, but they can't quite afford, let's say, you know, a year of therapy or they don't, they're not in a location that they could come into this therapist office. And so this therapist creates a

digital course. But it's still high quality. You can get amazing results. It's a six-month program, and it's $5,000. Well, that therapist deserves every penny of that, the schooling, the education, they experience. And so when it makes sense for that therapist to have a $100 program, it's just not right for their branding. It's not right for the results they're going to get. So what they want to focus on is how to sell a high-ticket product, program, service, whatever it might be. So at that point, you want to educate yourself on how do I do this? I'm going to research other people that are selling a $5,000 program. What are they doing? What do their webinars look like? What do their social media look like? No matter if you're a first time entrepreneur or not,

you do not need to have your product be low priced in order for you to be successful. You just need to know how to market at that price point. Now, oftentimes when you are doing that research, and I've heard this from some members of this audience as well, they'll say, you know, I had this idea for X. But then when I started looking around online at other people who are in that same space, I get intimidated because you're comparing your own chapter one to somebody else's chapter 100. Yeah. How do you then kind of get over that hurdle of, oh my goodness, the people who are out there who are already doing this are so established. Oh, I love this question. It comes up a lot with my students. So the first, thing I want to remind people and you said it, when you compare yourself to somebody online,

you're likely comparing their five, ten years in to your first year. And it's just not fair. In addition to that, let's say you were comparing yourself to someone who's been doing it as long as you've been doing it, but they look like they're way more put together. You have no idea how messy it is on the back end. And for most of us getting started, it's very messy on the back end. And so when you start to compare yourself and you feel that feeling of jealousy or envy, like, how are they doing it so well and I'm not? I always tell my students, turn that envy into curiosity. So if you have that feeling of jealousy, ask yourself, what do they have right now that I want and get specific? Is it the way they're doing social media? Is it the way they're selling their

products? Is it the type of products they have? Where does that jealousy come from? and let's start putting a plan together so you can get what you want. So that's just a different way to look at comparing yourself because I think we all do it. So we've kind of got to turn that on its head. But in addition to that, I love when my students find somebody else doing something they want to do and that other person seems to be successful online. Remember, we don't have the whole story. But it looks like it's working for them.

Great. Because that means that idea could absolutely be validated in the marketplace. And there's room for all of us. No one's going to do it quite the way you do it. I have so much competition in what I do in my business and what I sell. And I try to keep my head down and get really clear on how I serve and attract that audience that I know that I can help without worrying about what everybody else is doing. And that has served me well.

But the fact that it is out there probably does help me because the topics I teach are very, very popular because I'm not the only one who does it. We'll come back to this episode after this word from our sponsors. The holidays are right around the corner and if you're hosting, you're going to need to get prepared. Maybe you need bedding, sheets, linens. Maybe you need serveware and cookware. And of course, holiday decor, all the stuff to make your home a great place to host during the holidays. You can get up to 70% off during Wayfair's Black Friday sale.

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That's your commercial payments of fifth third better. Let's say that you do have an expertise, or we'll go back to the, you are a graphic designer, or you are a therapist, or you are, you work in HR for a Fortune 500 company, you have a particular expertise. You've been doing it all your life. You're over it. And you just don't want to go into business for yourself doing this thing that you've already done for 20 years. You want a radical 180. Yes. How should you approach that? And there's sort of two elements to this. There's the logistical element of gaining that 10% edge. And then there's the psychological element of overcoming your own internalized imposter syndrome. Yes, so true. And I think those two things come up a lot. So I love the pivot and I'm all about it. And that's why in the four quadrants, one of the things I say is don't do it if it doesn't bring you joy. I remember I created a digital course on how to do Facebook ads. I was so burned out of teaching Facebook ads that I never put the product out into the world. Like I realized I just created something. I don't want to teach anymore. And so I know. I know.

know what that feels like. Yeah. And you were the author of Facebook Marketing for Dummies, right, in the dummy series? Yes. I wrote a book called Facebook Marketing All in One for Dummies. I was a co-author. I had other people, but yes. So I was deep into Facebook and then realized I don't want to teach Facebook marketing anymore. So it was kind of a big deal for me. And it kind of scared me a bit, shook me up a bit because I was known for Facebook marketing. But I knew I want longevity. I want to be here 20 years from now in this business. So I got to make sure that I'm staying true to what really feels right. And so one, it takes courage to make the pivot. But number two, if your expertise is in one area and you want to build it up in another, let's get busy. Let's start

taking pro bono work. Let's get our hands in there and make things happen. Whether you're charging for it or not, we just got to get the experiences first. So for me, I started creating digital courses in my own business and became really successful with the courses I sold. And then people started asking me, how do you create these courses? How do you market these courses? And a whole new business was started. But I had to do the work first and get results for myself, then I could teach it to others. So it's really getting into action, whatever that means for you. So you can start to get those experiences and results. But how does that work if it's a highly technical skill or a skill that has high barriers to entry.

You're going to have to either spend the time or the money to get the experience. So let's say you want to do something online. You want to be going back to the marriage therapist. You want to do that online. But you are not a therapist. Well, that's going to mean that you need to go back and get the education, the certifications. If you want to say I'm a certified therapist teaching people how to have a better marriage, that you've got to have that integrity.

And with that comes time, money, energy sometimes depending on what you want. Because this is an interesting question because typically I tell people, look at what you're good at, where you have the expertise and double down on that. But some people are like, that's not what I want to do, Amy. So we've got to go out there and get that information, education, certification that you need if that's important for your pivot. But it's going to take some time. Right.

As this is going on, there are certainly going to be a lot of naysayers who say, hey, that's too risky. It's scary. You know, what about health insurance? You hear that at best people who are genuinely concerned and at worst concern trolling. How do you deal with that? Oh, yes. Okay. There's a few different areas that I want to talk about.

Number one, be careful who you share your dreams with because not everybody can hold space for you. So what happens is you're at work and you tell your co-worker, hey, I'm thinking about starting a side hustle about X, Y, Z, because one day I want to leave this job and start my own business. And she is likely going to tell you all the reasons why you shouldn't do it because her uncle tried it a few years ago and he crashed and burned. And she saw something on TV about how this is the what riskiest thing you could do. So she's going to tell you all the reasons you shouldn't do it. And you're going to believe her because you're in a vulnerable state. But I want to point out that you just took advice from someone who has no. desire to do what it is you want to do. She's not taking the risk. She's not putting herself out there

because she's fearful. So now you're taking advice from someone that's fearful that will never do what you want to do. Be careful who you share your dreams with. Just tell three people. For me, I told my husband who believes in me, my mom who thinks I could land on the moon and my best friend, three people that I knew would support me and keep me accountable and push me back out there if I got cold feet, but they would believe in me and encourage me from day one. Be selected. of who you tell. And then also remember, most people won't do this. I wrote a book for the courageous few that will say, yeah, I love a regular paycheck. Health insurance is amazing, but I'm going to take a risk to find a different way to get that because freedom means more to me than the security of a

paycheck every other week. And so it's just a mindset shift. And you got to ask yourself, how bad do you want it? In my book, I talk a lot about figuring out your why. For me, in the beginning, my why was, I didn't want a boss. I didn't want to be told what to do, when to do it, or how to do it anymore. I wanted to call the shots. So on the days when I was trying to build my own business and my worries of not having a regular paycheck or the typical health insurance knocked me down, my why would pick me back up and pushed me back out there.

I want freedom. I knew that's what I wanted. And I just got to say, as a side note, as an entrepreneur, you can absolutely get health insurance. There's different ways to do it. It's a limiting belief to think of that's really hard to do. I've done it for 14 years. Yeah, same. I've been self-insured since 2008. Okay, love that. So it's very doable and probably getting easier than when we first started trying to do it. Yeah, exactly. In 2008, it was much, much harder than it is today. Today, it's just substantially easier. Agree. The point that you made earlier about taking feedback from

people who don't share the same dream. I've often heard a cautionary analog to that, which is don't take feedback or advice from someone who doesn't have the results that you want. Yes. Amen. Let's imagine for somebody who's listening, they have started a side hustle, right? They've figured out what their expertise is, that intersection of expertise in joy. They have identified a solution to a challenge that people are willing to spend money on. They've started a side hustle. hustle. They've iterated it a few times. They've iterated their product or their service. And now they're feeling ready, right? Their side hustle is regularly pulling in 70% of their normal nine to five paycheck per month. They're feeling ready to put in their two weeks notice and

dedicate their full-time efforts to making their side hustle their full-time reality. How do they know when they're actually ready, particularly given the volatility of that income of the effort of all of it. Yes. I help people build out a runway to leave their nine to five job. And part of that runway is to look at your finances. We have to be really honest with ourselves around our finances. And specifically what I'm talking about is when you think I want to leave this nine to five job,

I want to start a business, you have to make a decision as to what things will look like when you actually make the leap. For example, I always say if you want to have a small nest egg, let's not look for a huge nest egg. Most of us will never have that. I certainly did not. But let's say you want to have three months or six months of living expenses in the bank before you actually leave. And so that becomes one of your goals. Now, I also encourage my students to choose an exit date. So let's say six months from now, you put on a Post-it note, I'm going to leave on December 1st, 2023. And so you put that on a Post-it note, you look at it every day and you remind yourself, this is the date that I'm leaving my 9-to-5 job. So what do I need to do today to make sure that this date happens?

And one of those things might mean that you are saving almost every penny you can in order to have that nest egg when you leave. In addition to that, some people will think, okay, I'm not going to have a big nest egg, but I have to have a certain amount of clients in my side hustle before I actually leave. So that could be a goal as well. But you do want to sit down and ask yourself, how much money do I actually need to live in order to survive and get by? Now, when you go out on your own and when you leave your 9 to 5 job, it's not going to be the year that you get new wood floors in your house or you take that vacation or you get a new car. We're talking scrappy.

We're talking sacrificing in the first year or two in order to make it happen. And the reason why the sacrificing and the scaling back usually works for most people is because their why is clear enough. I want freedom. So I'm willing to skip the vacation this year in order to have enough money to quit my job and start my own thing. Let's talk more about that specific date, that exit date, because that's a big area of focus for you. The concept of having a date that you decide in advance, let's say it's a specific date. going to be December 1st. What's interesting to me about that concept is that so many other people who talk about starting a business will typically give a metric like you want to be making

X amount of money or you want to have Y number of clients. What's interesting to me about the framework of having a date is you're essentially saying, almost telling yourself, by this date, I'm going to have X amount of money or Y number of clients. Have you seen that? to work? Have you, like, tell me more about how you develop that framework of deciding a date in advance, even though there's no way that you could really know how your business is going to be doing in December. Right. Realistically, you can't know for sure. However, there's a lot of things you can put in place to make it happen. Okay. Let's say we're going to quit our job in six months. And in those six months, your goal is to have three months of revenue or three months saved in a

savings account of living expenses. So now you don't just go back to your normal life and think, okay, I'm going to work at this 95 job and I'm just going to cut back here and not go out to dinner here or not do that there. You have to have a plan. So we need to start thinking, okay, what are we going to offer in a side hustle that allows me to make XYZ? How many clients do I need to have? Where am I going to get these clients? What do I need to do in order to make sure I have a roster of people that are paying me now to help me get to that goal that I have. And so there's content creation and putting together offers and putting yourself out there and starting that side hustle. Again, that's your blueprint. That's the plan. I am such a planner. I'm not a dreamer.

I'm not into manifestation without the actual action and putting together a strategy. So you do have a plan and you're not just saying, I hope to save a bunch of money before I leave. We got to get into action. We'll come back to the show in just a second. But first, Amy, you run a company that now has 20 employees. But ironically, the whole message of your company is quit your job. Right. How are you able to balance that? How do you have 20 employees who all serve the message of you should really quit your job?

Yes. I have always had an mission to create a business that didn't feel like the corporate world, didn't feel like the typical job. Because I knew if I'm going to encourage people to quit their job and start, their own business. One, not everybody wants to do that. So I'm very aware. And there are some people that maybe, I bet there are many people on my team right now that their goal down the line is to start their own thing. Absolutely. But right now, that's not where they're at. And so I make sure that I have a culture of entrepreneurship in my business. So let me give you an example. We work a four-day work week. We work Monday through Thursday, eight hours a day. We take Friday, Saturday and Sunday

off. Sometimes when we're in a big launch, that's not going to work, but 90% of the time it does. And so I like to give people more time to rest and relax and recharge so they love coming back to work. So a four-day work week, we started it two years ago. I would never turn back. Another thing that we do is I help pay for people to have a life coach. If they want a life coach, I will pay for half of it monthly on the team so that they could focus on their personal development so they can make sure that they have the support they need. And so there's different things in the business that we do like that to have the spirit of entrepreneurship. So this feels like a place that feels different than the 9 to 5 world. But also, yeah, I will lose employees to doing their own

thing and I will celebrate that all day long. Now, it took you a while before you hired your first employee. You were seven years into your business. before you hired your first full-time employee. Can you talk about that transition? Yes, I was so scared to do it and I should have done it years before. So one of the fears of building your own business is hiring somebody full-time and realizing, oh my goodness, I have to pay them a salary. Like, no matter what, they're getting that every other week paycheck, that thing that I was so scared to let go of. Now I'm going to do that for somebody else. And that's a huge step in the business. Number one, you have to remember, in order to build a thriving business online,

you can't just do it all on your own for a long period of time. The first year, yeah, it's likely going to be you. Maybe if you can afford a virtual assistant for a few hours a week, great. Most of us can't do that even in the first year. But by the second, third, fourth year, we want to start bringing on contractors or employees in order for us to do the big things that we want to do in our business. And so you've got to look at your first hire as this is how I'm going to sustain the business and protect my mental health because the number one reason for burnout for most new entrepreneurs is they're trying to do it all on their own. You create this business so you can have more freedom and then you realize you're working double the time you did in your

nine to five job. You're not seeing your family and you feel absolutely burned out. And it's because you're trying to do it all on your own. Successful businesses were not meant to be ran by one person, and if you look around, that is not what you will find. And so finding the courage to hire that first person saying, okay, I'm going to figure out what to give them, how to work with them. It's going to be a learning curve, but I know I want this business to be sustainable and I can't do it all on my own. Best decision I could have ever made was to hire my first project manager. She was a marketing project manager. Her name was Chloe. She's still best friends with me to this day. She transformed my business because she started to do things that there's no way I had the

bandwidth to even think about. Best decision I ever made. What types of things? So number one, she would get really deep into the marketing metrics, the funnels that we wanted to create. She would understand how people were engaging with us online because I was creating my course content, my podcast content, I was building relationships in order for us to be able to do collaborations. I was doing these things that were necessary for me as a personal brand to do, but I didn't have the bandwidth to get in deep into the marketing funnels and the analytics and understanding what people are needing and wanting based on their behavior with our funnels. She was able to spend the time there. She would understand at a new level and then

implement based on the information we received. That took our business to the next level. Did she have a background in that prior to coming to work for you? Did you? She did. Chloe was a project manager for Deepak Chopra. So she came from a business that was big and thriving. And also she was in a marketing role. She had put on those 21 days of meditations that Deepak and Oprah would do together.

So she knew how to create campaigns online, marketing campaigns, to grow leads and to sell. So yes, she did come with me. that type of experience. And I think it's important. I've made the mistake before where I've hired someone that had no real experience in digital marketing, but I thought that their type of marketing, let's say more in person or more brick and mortar, would still lend itself to my business and it didn't. So I don't hire anyone anymore that doesn't have digital marketing experience if they're going to work in my marketing department. Right. And that leads to the kind of the bigger question of as you continue to grow, you have to learn all of these new skill sets, including how to hire and then how to

manage. Yes. And how to evaluate, right? Yes. I mean, I'm 14 years in. And the toughest thing that I still do in my business is hiring and team building. It's a challenge. And the reason being is because I don't believe it's ever perfect in any business. There's new personalities that come in. You hire, someone, you think they're going to do one thing, you realize they're not a good fit, now you've got to deal with it. You get better and better at it. I'm much better than I was in year one, but it's still something that we have challenges with, making sure we find the right people, getting them in the right seats, and we take it really seriously. It's not easy. I'll tell you that. Right, right. Well, how are you able to, especially as your team grows, guide the company culture, even just the

concept of company culture was something I never truly understood until until my own team started to grow. And people, based on their own backgrounds, would come in with these very different ideas about how companies are supposed to work and how they're supposed to be run. How are you able to guide that, especially when you're all meeting virtually? You know, it definitely hasn't been easy. And yes, we do meet virtually. One thing we try to do is a few times a year, depending on the projects we're working on, we try to get together or at least some groups get together in person because I do think the in person matters. And here's an example. Years ago, I had hired somebody new. She was only in like her first 60 days. She wasn't really contributing yet.

There wasn't a lot of action I had been seeing yet, but I thought maybe it's going to take her a little while to get it going. And then we happened to have a project that we got in person. And when I got to see her in person and see how she worked and her personality, I realized she is not a good fit for the team. She's never going to be happy here. And she's not going to fit in. But also, she's just not going to enjoy our culture. I would have never known that if I wasn't in proximity with her. And from there, we had a conversation that we mutually agreed, this isn't the type of business she wanted to be in. but I needed to get in proximity. So now I make it my mission to find time to be with these people in real life and not just

online. Another thing is when we do hiring, we do a culture interview. We make sure they know who we are, what we're about, how we operate culturally. That's one thing that's important to us. We also do a test run and have them do an actual project before they get hired and we pay for their time. But the reason we do that is we want to see how they're, mind works. What questions do they ask? How much can they run with it versus how much do they want my

attention while they're running with it? How do they think? How do they explain it? So the test run happens to be a huge part of us getting the hiring right. Sounds like he spent a lot of time thinking about how to hire. What's in the culture interview? The culture interview, we do more of the talking than the actual candidate. So it's with my director of operations and she'll explain the four-day work week. why we do it. She'll explain all the benefits that people get, not just a bonus if we hit our goal, but all the other benefits, including a team retreat every year, the coaching that we pay half for, and different other things like we offer an allowance for personal growth and education in the company where they can find different courses they want to take and get them approved by us. So we

explain just all the benefits, all the perks. We go over our mission, we go over our values. We just want them to understand this is who we are. Is this the kind of business you want to work with? So it's almost like an orientation. Yes. Culture orientation. Yes. Right. Yeah. I've had many of those conversations with potential hires as well where when you're shaping the way that you want to run things and it's not what people are used to having to explain to someone, no, we don't have a dress code. You know, things like that. And we intentionally don't and we never will. So true. Yeah, it's a whole other world to run a business online and to do most of your calls via Zoom. Not everyone's cut out for it. I am hiring my niece. She's 21 years old. She just graduated with a journalism degree from Baylor and she's going to come work for me. And we've talked about this for years. I'm very excited about it. But her number one concern is she says, Auntie, I really like working in proximity with people. I like collaborating. I like talking it out.

I like brainstorming in person in an office. And I said, that's one thing that you are going to have a challenge with. If you can't get on board with Zoom meetings and working on your own and maybe going to coffee shop if you like to be around people, you've got to find out how to make this work for you. It's a whole different ballgame than the nine to five when you're building an online business. So we've talked about it a lot just to make sure she was going to be okay with this, but not everyone is.

And that's okay as well. Right. Excellent. Well, Amy, thank you so much for taking the time. Are there any final messages that you want to share with this audience? The last thing I'll say is that starting your own business is definitely not going to be the easiest thing you've ever done. But what I know for sure is even my best day in a 9 to 5 job, when everything's working out, I'm crushing it. The best day in my 9 to 5 job is still not as good as being my own boss, even on the hard days of being. being my own boss, it's still better than those good days in my nine to five. It's that freedom. It's calling the shots. It's doing what you were meant to do. I know it takes a lot of courage to get

going, but I promise the rewards far exceed the hardships of getting it going. So for those of you who are thinking about making it happen, I believe in you more than you believe in yourself. All you got to do is take that first step toward courage. Well, thank you so much, Amy. Thank you. Thank you so much, Amy. What are three key takeaways that we got from this conversation? Number one, Amy introduced us to a framework known as the four quadrants. The four quadrants are how you find that sweet spot of figuring out your business idea. First, what's your expertise?

Second, what problem are you solving? Third, where are people spending money? And fourth, is this something you can do for a long time? Does it bring you enough joy that you could continue on with it? When you find something at the Venn diagram intersection of all of those, that's when you found your idea, your business idea. There are four quadrants at the sweet spot. And this is the first thing I want all my students to do when they're saying, you know, I'm not really sure what I'd create in a business, in a course, in a membership, whatever it might be. And the first question I want them to ask is, where is your expertise?

Where have you gotten results for yourself or for your clients or for your students or in the business that you're working in right now? now, what does your knowledge and expertise look like? Now, you only need a 10% edge. You don't need to have more certification, more training, more education. You're going to look at what you do have right now and how can you turn that into a solution to help other people. So that's the first quadrant. The second quadrant out of four is who do you want to serve? And more importantly, what solution are you going to solve for them? So what are they challenged with? What do they need right now? What are their desires because your expertise needs to be a solution to a challenge that your ideal customers are having. So what does that challenge look like and how are you going to solve it? The third quadrant

is where are people spending money right now? So if you think that you want to create, let's say, a business around coaching parents to help their picky eaters eat dinner at night, let's say that's what you wanted to do. Well, do moms and dads spend money on books about it, coaching about it, are there podcasts about it? Are there, is there content out in the world that people would pay for to get help in this one area? And if the answer is yes, that is a good thing. You don't always want to be first to market. That's a whole different world and a lot of time and energy and money to get known. But if it's already being done, that's actually a really great sign that you can get it up and running quickly. And then the fourth quadrant is, what brings you joy?

I don't want you to creating a business based off your expertise if it's the last thing that you want to talk about or teach about. If you're burned out on your expertise, you're not going to want to create a whole business around it. And so that framework, those four questions, will help you refine any business idea that you have. That's the first key takeaway. Key takeaway number two, it's natural to compare ourselves to others. You hear people always say, don't compare yourselves to others, don't compare yourselves to people on social media. That sounds great in theory, but it is absolutely human to compare yourself to others. It's just it's inescapable. But there's a way to reframe that so that it becomes constructive and positive rather than demoralizing.

When you compare yourself to somebody online, you're likely comparing their five, 10 years in to your first year. And it's just not fair. In addition to that, let's say you were comparing yourself to someone who's been doing it as long as you've been doing it. but they look like they're way more put together. You have no idea how messy it is on the back end. And for most of us getting started, it's very messy on the back end. And so when you start to compare yourself and you feel that feeling of jealousy or envy, like, how are they doing it so well and I'm not?

I always tell my students, turn that envy into curiosity. So if you have that feeling of jealousy, ask yourself, what do they have right now that I want and get specific. Is it the way they're doing social media? Is it the way they're selling their products? Is it the type of products they have? Where does that jealousy come from? And let's start putting a plan together so you can get what you want. Starting a business can be intimidating, especially when you look at people who are more established than you are. Those negative feelings can crop up when you look at other businesses. And that can be an additional hurdle. So learning how to constructively observe the success of others is a key part of learning how to draw inspiration

for the business that you want to start. That's key takeaway number two. Finally, key takeaway number three, be careful about who you share your dreams with. If somebody has not achieved a career, a business, a life that is similar to what you want to emulate, then be very cautious about taking feedback from them. Be careful who you share your dreams with because not everybody can hold space for you. So what happens is you're at work and you tell your coworker, hey, I'm thinking about starting a side hustle about XYZ because one day I want to leave this job and start my own business.

And she is likely going to tell you all the reasons why you shouldn't do it because her uncle tried it a few years ago and he crashed and burned and she saw something on TV. about how this is the what riskiest thing you could do. So she's going to tell you all the reasons you shouldn't do it. And you're going to believe her because you're in a vulnerable state. But I want to point out that you just took advice from someone who has no desire to do what it is you want to do. She's not taking the risk. She's not putting herself out there because she's fearful. So now you're taking advice from someone that's fearful that will never do what you want to do. Be careful who you share your dreams with. People who don't understand the dream that you have or who

don't understand what's involved in pursuing that dream at the day-to-day level, they may say things that are discouraging that make it harder for you to believe in yourself, and doubt is a self-fulfilling prophecy. You know, when I was starting to buy rental properties, my best friend said to me, there are all of these real estate agents and general contractors. What makes you think that you could out-compete them? If they're not successful as real estate investors, if the majority of them are not, what makes you think that you could be?

That's what my best friend said to me when I was initially buying my first rental property. And those discouraging words, they haunted me. I mean, I almost didn't go through with it because I was like, she's right. There are so many real estate agents out there, and they're not earning residual income as rental investors, why do I think I could when the agents that I know aren't doing it? Man, it rocked me. Those discouraging words really rocked me. And the thing that got me out of that was eventually I became a real estate agent.

I went through the training and I got my license as a real estate agent. And by virtue of doing so, I realized there is absolutely nothing. nothing in agent training that teaches you how to be a good investor, that learning how to be an agent and learning how to be an investor are completely separate skill sets, completely separate. That was how I got over the imposter syndrome, the sense of, well, if you're an agent, a real estate agent, then you must know more than me. I'm just some do-it-yourself investor, right? Like I got over the imposter syndrome by going through the training, by getting the certification, by coming out the other end with the same credentials, and then saying, wow, I didn't need that. I absolutely didn't need that at all.

What a waste of time and money. Okay. Cool. You know, I mean, it wasn't a waste because it gave me the confidence. But wow. What an investment in what ultimately amounted to confidence, right? Confidence in theory is free, but sometimes in order to get it, you have to go through a lot of expense. And I say expense both monetarily and time.

Sometimes you have to go through those hurdles and get the credentials in order to discover that you never needed them in the first place. Anyway, that's my story about being careful about who you share your dreams with because they may discourage you. But the discouraging words that they're speaking come from the mouth. of someone who doesn't actually know the subject matter that they're talking about, right? If they're not an expert in the field and if they haven't achieved the type of results that you want, then why are you giving their feedback so much weight? That's the third and final key takeaway from today's interview with Amy Porterfield. Thank you so much for tuning in.

My name is Paula Pan. This is the Afford Anything podcast. I am recording this ending on Wednesday, May 31st of 2023. As I've shared with you, I have just, speaking of credentials, I just completed a master's in business and economics journalism. I graduated exactly 14 days ago. And tomorrow, June 1st, I return to afford anything full time. I have so many ideas, so many plans.

So I'm excited to get that rolling and to be able to spend more time with you, the Afford Anything community. I'll be sending out more newsletters. We'll be rolling out our course, your first rental property again. We will be rolling out some new projects that I'm not going to announce just yet, but there's some big stuff coming down the pipeline. So thank you for being on this journey with me. I can't wait to be back at Afford Anything again, full-time, starting tomorrow morning. Thank you again so much. My name is Paula Pantt.

This is the Afford- Anything podcast. If you enjoyed today's episode, please share it with a friend, share it with a family member. You can subscribe to our show notes at afford-anything.com slash show notes. You can find me on Instagram at Paula P-A-U-L-A, P-A-N-T, and I will catch you in the next episode.